New stories to be published in 2025

Yesterday I posted about the new stories of mine to be published in 2025 but I forgot about those that will appear in my collection Welgar the Cursed, to be published as a paperback and ebook by Tule Fog Press. This will include six stories:

Ossani the Healer and The Beautiful Homunculus

The Dark Priestdom (first published in Savage Realms Monthly #19, 2023)

Welgar the Cursed (first pubished in Swords & Heroes, 2023)

Mask of a Mad God

The Forbidden City of Cyramon (first published in Swords & Heroes One Story at a Time, 2024)

Emerging from Their Twilit Realms 

 

 

 

 

My other new stories will be: 

Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War in Crimson Quill Quarterly #5. This is a sword and sorcery story, which includes a recurring character of mine, Nadrain the Storyteller, who narrates the tale of the great artist Essayan when he branched out into designing "machineries of war" and of the terrible fate that befell him.

Visit Fungosia in 4Star Stories #30 is a humorous science fiction tale.

Lies and Treachery is to be serialised in two parts later in the year. This is a sword and sorcery tale involving three recurring characters Horbeck, Brud and Asner, who first appeared in The Demon from Another World (Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium). I have written a number of other tales about them in the last couple of months which have yet to be placed.

First new stories to be published in 2025: Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War and Visit Fungosia

It now looks like the first new stories of mine to be published in the New Year will be a dark fantasy called Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War in Crimson Quill Quarterly #5 and a humorous science fiction yarn I wrote a few years back called Visit Fungosia, which will be in 4Star Stories #30. 

I do already have a third story lined up to be serialised in two parts later in the year, Lies and Treachery, which is a sword and sorcery tale involving three recurring characters Horbeck, Brud and Asner, who first appeared in The Demon from Another World (Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium).

My only other story so far scheduled for 2025 is a reprint of one that originally appeared in the online Sword & Sorcery Magazine in 2021. This is a tale called The God in the Keep and will be in the August issue of Schlock! Webzine.

Phantasmagoria - New issue includes review of Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 9 and an article about the Elak of Atlantis trilogy by Adrian Cole

 

The latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine is now out and includes a review of Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 9, plus an artcle by David A. Riley on Adrian Cole's Elak of Atlantis Trilogy.

The issue also includes a reprint of a science fiction horror story by David A. Riley: Help-Plants, which was first published in Aboriginal Science Fiction. It's also included in my collection from Shadow Publishing, The Lurkers in the Abyss and Other Tales of Terror.

Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War will be in Crimson Quill Quarterly issue 5 in January 2025

I am pleased to see a second story of mine will appear in Crimson Quill Quarterly. My fantasy story Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War will appear in issue 5 in January and will be my first brand new story to appear in the New Year.

Kickstarter campaign passes its target

The kickstarter campaign launched by Lyndon Perry and his Tule Fog Press for the publication of my collection Welgar the Cursed and for two others (Andrew Darlington's The Eternal Assassin Chronicles and Tim Hanlon's Path of the Swordsman) has passed its target figure of $1000. 

My hero and mercenary is in trouble. Follow along as Welgar faces an Agryptian demon god and experience his subsequent quest to rid himself of the evil that has befallen him. Six tales of dark and sorcerous fantasy. 

My collection is to be published as a paperback and ebook. 

Sample one for free. Read “The Forbidden City of Cyramon” by David A. Riley at Swords & Heroes eZine.

My sword and sorcery tale Lies and Treachery to be serialised in 2-parts next year

Contract signed for another sword and sorcery tale, Lies and Treachery, which is a further adventure of my mercenary heroes Horbeck, Brud and Asner. This longish story (11,100 words) will be serialised in April and July next year.

This is a sequel to The Demon from Another World which was recently published in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium from TreeShaker Books. This was also quite a long tale, standing at 9,900 words.

I now have to find homes for my other Horbeck & Co tales: The Mummified Demi-God, Dead Thieves in the Night and The Sorcerer's Casket.  

Just to add to the tally I'm currently working on yet another story in their saga, A Murder of Necromancers.

Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War

My next new sword and sorcery story, Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War will be published next month. I just had the edits for it earlier today. Very light edits, mainly just the addition of a few commas, about which I must admit to being a bit mean.

More about this soon. 

Baal the Necromancer

My copy of Schlock! Webzine for December 2024 arrived today with my sword and sorcery story Baal the Necromancer reprinted in it. 

Baal the Necromancer is reprinted in Schlock! Webzine

First published in Mythic magazine #17 in 2021, my sword and sorcery story Baal the Necromancer has just been reprinted in the December. 2024 issue of Schlock! Webzine. I did write a sequel of sorts to this, The Storyteller of Koss which was first published in Summer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy in 2022 and again reprinted in Schlock! Webzine in its October 2024 issue.

New stories published in 2024

Not counting a few reprints, this year I have or will have had the following new stories published:

The Triptych of Hell (Lovecraftiana, Candlemas Issue)

An Oddity (Schlock! Webzine, January Issue & Strange Aeon 2024) 

In His Father's Foosteps (Schlock! Webzine, April issue)

Floating Free (Schlock! Webzine, September issue) 

The Adventure of the Mouldy Book (Sherlock and Friends: Eldritch Investigations, Tule Fog Press)

The Forbidden City of Cyramon (Swords & Heroes, Tule Fog Press and Welgar the Cursed, Tule Fog Press)

In the Temple of the Snake (Crimson Quill Quarterly, issue 3)

The Demon from Another World (Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium, TreeShaker Books)

Mask of a Mad God (Welgar the Cursed, Tule Fog Press)

Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus (Welgar the Cursed, Tule Fog Press)

Emerging From Their Twilit Realms (Welgar the Cursed, Tule Fog Press)

And coming so far in 2025:

Essayan's Terrible Machineries of War (Crimson Quill Quarterly, issue 5, January) 

Visit Fungosia (4StarStories #31, edited by David Gray)

Lies and Treachery (to be announced)

 

 

 

 

 

Lies and Treachery - my second Horbeck sword and sorcery story accepted for publication next year

I am very pleased to reveal that my second full Horbeck story, a novelette called Lies and Treachery, will be serialised in two parts next year. More details soon. 

The first story published featuring Horbeck and his two mercenary companions Brud and Asner, The Demon from Another World, appeared in Anthology of the Damned: Necrmoirrium, earlier this month from TreeShaker Books.

 

New Horbeck story finished: The Sorcerer's Casket

I have just completed another story, a novelette really, about my mercenary hero Horbeck and his comrades in arms, Brud and Asner. The latest story is called The Sorcerer's Casket and is the sixth in their ongoing saga.

The tales so far in chronological order are:

The Unhappy Inquisitor

The Demon from Another World (Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium)

Lies and Treachery

The Mummified Demi-God

Dead Thieves in the Night

The Sorcerer's Casket

In total these add up to 57,200 words, which is amazing to me as I never intended to create a series of stories when I first wrote about Horbeck. 

Illustration for The Demon from Another World

 

Illustration for The Demon from Another World

As a writer sometimes an illustration for a story you've written really stands out for you, and I must admit I do love the one provided for my sword and sorcery tale The Demon from Another World in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium from TreeShaker Books.

An Oddity published in Strange Aeon 2024

I was surprised to see such glowing praise from the editor of Strange Aeon: 2024, M. Keaton about my story An Oddity, which was reprinted in it recently. The tale was first printed in Shlock! Webzine earlier this year.